Flora of Ashdown Forest - Botanical Society of the British Isles

221L1L1ACEAENarthecium ossifragum. Bog asphodel.On the bogs on Ashdown Forest (Forster 18161. Bogs on Ashdown Forest (Coleman 18361.Ashdown Forest, M. R. Dixon, 1886 (Arnold 18871. Ashdown (Wh,twell 19021. Plentiful onthe Forest in the bogs around Crow borough (Done 1914). Ashdown Forest, in most of theboggy spots, plentiful, A. H. Wolley-Dod and MD (Wolley-Dod 19371. Many records forDuddleswell etc., in Dent (1928-19531. Frequent, mainly on the east side of the Forest, theobvious Sussex stronghold (Hall 19801.Locally abundant in wet, acidic flushes in open heath land, mainly on the south side ofthe Forest. In July, the deep yellow spikes contrast with the pink of Erica tetralix to formspectacular sheets of colour.The plant grows best where the summer water table is deeper than 10 cm from thesurface and where lateral water movement and oscillations in the water table are frequent. It is intolerant of severeshading and below 30% of daylight it ceases to flower. It will tolerate a range of pH from 3.6-6,5, but is most common ata pH of 4.5-5.5 (two measurements from our sites are pH 3.6 and 3.9). Reproduction is mainly vegetative, althoughabundant seed is usually produced. The flowers are scented but produce no nectar and are generally cross-pollinated byinsects; they are also self-compatible. Seeds may germinate immediately or up to a year later; seedlings were only rarelyobserved by Summerfield (1974), but have been seen frequently on bare peat by FR.Very uncommon elsewhere in Sussex and south-east England, but abundant in west Surrey, the New Forest and thenorth and west of Britain. It is endemic to north and west Europe from Portugal to Sweden.Convallaria majalis. lily-of-the-valley, 5t Leonard's lily.'In the Forests, near Wych Cross' E. Jenner (Arnold 18871. Dent noted in 1945 thataccording to Ronnie Stevenson it had spread due to tree felling and dragging from one clump;•• he also visited it in 1946 and 1947 (Dent 1928-19531. Wych Cross in larch woodland, c.1956, R. Green. Tetrad 43G (Hall 19801.3 The native sites known today are east of Wych Cross, where the lily occurs on the ridgerather than in the valley. The main site is in the small area of National Trust woodland east ofthe Nursery (423.322), pH 2.8, where it was first found and is of particular interest as theplants are probably native. During the 1970s when the larch plantation was cleared the tall4 5 bracken hid the plants which were rediscovered on a Flora meeting on 17 May 1995 whenMR & PR took us to within 20 metres of it saying "it was here somewhere ... " - almost immediately patches were foundscattered frequently over an area of about 40 metres x 15 metres. It is usually a woodland plant, but was growing withouttree cover except for a few youllg birches, shade being provided instead by bracken, with bluebell, bilberry, heather, wavyhair-grass and foxglove. The woodland itself is reported as ancient woodland in the Sussex Inventory of Ancient Woodlandbut now has little tree cover, partly due to storm damage. Subsequent to the Flora meeting, another vegetative patch wasfound about 30 metres east of the Forest Centre car park just off the road verge (433.3231, pH 3.3, 1995, PW, andanother patch c. 5 metres long was found, presumably planted, in front of Spikey Brown's Cottage (425.324), pH 3.1,1995, TR; both also appear to be the native material.There are also scattered records of plants of garden origin at Nutley in secondary woodland at Morrisfield (448.283);and in the lane below the gardens at Ashdown View (444.286), 1994, Flora meetings; and near Summerford (470.264),1994, TR. It is widely grown in gardens around the Forest.The native plants differ from those grown in gardens. Wild plants have small leaves which are noticeably glaucous,they flower later (they were just beginning to flower sparsely on our visit), and the inflorescences have an average of only5.5 flowers each. By contrast, plants of garden origin are usually more robust, bright green, flower more profusely earlierin the year, and have more flowers on each inflorescence with means of 9.9 and 11.7 flowers per inflorescence for twogarden populations; plants for sale in the Wych Cross Nursery in 1995 were of this latter type! Dent (1928-19531 alsonoted that the wild plants at Wych Cross were much smaller than his garden plants. Three days after the Flora meeting,AI< visited the famous Lily Beds in woodland in St Leonard's Forest and found similar plants to our wild ones, and they arethe same native form as the other Sussex plants. Wolley-Dod (1937) noted that wild plants often do not flower; about 5%of the plants were flowering at Wych Cross in 1995, and only about 10-15% of the St Leonard's plants.PA has studied fruit set of the Wych Cross population: 18 plants were marked in early June in flower, but threeweeks later not one fruit had been formed. Similarly, large wild patches at Dallington Forest in Sussex also produced nofruit in 1995, and neither of the two garden populations produced fruit. This may be because the populations are clones(the lilies spreading by the creeping rhizomes), and plants with different genes are needed to cross-fertilise them, but somegarden plants do set fruit apparently in isolation.Wolley-Dod (1937) noted 36 sites in Sussex including Harrison's Rocks and High Rocks but it appears to have gonefrom many, and Hall (1980) only gave about 20 records in the Sussex Plant Atlas, including some garden escapes; it isprobably in decline in Sussex. It would be nice to restore the Wych Cross woodland back to what may have been theoriginal sessile oak - bilberry woodland to give it a more secure future.Convallaria is scattered in southern England, locally frequent in rocky woods in the north and west, widespread andsometimes common in Europe and Asia.